Took a walk turkey hunting on top of my ridge and noticed these holes only on cherry trees and nothing else.
Another pattern is the holes are only on the west facing side of the trees.
Looking broader, they're at various stages of hole sizes on cherry trees in this space.
Biggest hole I could sit a soda can in.
Any idea of what could cause this? I thought carpenter bees, then maybe woodpeckers get in, but looked like ants, not termites but unsure.
Would like to do something to try to keep the trees healthy if I can. Anyone seen anything like this before?
This is about 900' elevation, Appalachian range in Maryland.

That sure looks like woodpeckers to me.

I see carpenter ant galleries. Wood pecker just cracked open the melon to get to the ants. My guess would be pileated woodpecker. Oh and the tree was doughty, interior rot/hollow, in the first place which the ants colonized.

What Warrior said.

I do see plenty of woodpeckers around, so this makes sense.
Just didn't know if it was an insect first, then woodpecker, or vice versa.
Just don't want to lose a whole stand of timber if there's something I can do preventitvely

Agree with Warrior. Pileated woodpeckers after ants.

Pileated woodpeckers. But I've never seen cherry trees with bark that looks like that.

I believe we have 2 species of cherry trees here.
I'd call these flake bark "black cherry" where others have a smoother bark with horizontal lines a "wild cherry"
But always open to learning more from anyone that knows more than I do on the subject

Those are Black Cherry. Younger they have smooth light grey bark with horizontal black marks or lines. Mature the bark thickens and darkens and cracks in small plates like that. You don't see the larger ones often as they tend to go out as "hardwood pulp". The larger solid ones do have value as veneer and finish lumber for furniture and cabinetry. But few grow to the nice straight veneer logs as all prunus species are plagued with all sorts of disfiguring pathogens.

I have watched Pileated Woodpeckers hit the same tree day after day tearing up just like that.
I don't think any other woodpecker does the damage a Pileated can.

in the winter the ants go to the bottom of the trees and are quite docile.....smell ques the pileated to them
you can actually see the next years emergence 2025 of males and queens they have a 10*c movement time and flight at 25*C

I agree, pileated woodpeckers after the ants, the ants came first.



We have four cherry species native to PA, MD and other mid-Atlantic states. The ones in your pics are black cherries as you mentioned. The second type your talking about are pin cherries, sometimes called fire cherries. Those are the ones that have a smoother bark with the horizontal markings.

Sand cherry, a small shrub that grows in sandy areas and chokecherry, also a shrub/small tree that often grows in thickets, are the other two.

X whatever # this is! LOL

We were always told as kids that the leaves of the black cherry were poisonous to cattle. Contain a measure of cyanide.

They are. Most stone fruits have varying levels of alkaloids in the foliage and pit. The amounts vary from you'd have to eat a ton of it to just don't eat it'll make you sick.

If you look into it a good bit of our foods have trace amounts of of not so good chemicals. I recently learned that raw butterbeans aren't supposed to be eaten. Been snacking all my life while shelling beans, go figure.